Some facts about Russia since Shock Therapy has 'saved' it from communism...

: So Russia has been left looted and dispirited, with an aging physical plant, some heavy industry, a little investment, and a trusty stock of raw materials. Perestroika failed to build a Russian Silicon Valley. Reformists failed to modernize and Westernize the economy. Oligarchs have been caught stealing everything that was not nailed down.

And:

[R]eal wages under [the] new capitalism [in Russia] fell sharply and continuously... According to official statistics, real wages in 1998 were only 49.3 percent of their 1991 level. (1991 was the last year before the Soviet Union fell apart.) The share of the population below subsistence level was 24.1 percent, again by official count.(Monthly Review, July - August 1999, p. 86.)